Ronald Heifitz, the founder of the centre for public leadership at Harvard Kennedy school, may have an interesting angle to offer on the state of play in the UK's public services. With major reforms under way of how services in Britain are meant to be delivered, combined with the deepest spending cuts since the 1950s, we have what Heifitz would call an "adaptive challenge". In short, we don't know quite how to deal with the scale and complexity of the problem faced and, as such, public servants have to work it out for ourselves. We have to learn new strategies and skills to adapt to an unforgiving and unfamiliar situation.

New research by recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark illustrates one way in which this challenge is being received. Its survey of 1,000 public sector workers found that 41.1% of workers must now learn the additional skills required to do their job from colleagues or by searching the internet. The strong DIY theme might be music to the ears of Heifitz, who thinks that solutions to adaptive problems should be generated not by the leaders but by those closely connected to the issues and in greatest need of the solution. And there is no doubt that those affected by the cuts need the greatest help. More than a quarter of the public sector workers surveyed are having to take on further roles, as jobs have disbanded and as team numbers reduce, and 20.8% are having to learn new skills as roles merge, or take on greater responsibility and enhance their skills (20.2%).

We could interpret this positively, as it demonstrates that public service employees are showing initiative and using collaboration and innovation in order to bridge the gap in skills training.

But research from the University of East Anglia finds that public sector managers tasked to deliver rapid change are "being hampered by paradox, inconsistency and incoherence". Managers tasked with delivering rapid change are "confused" and are being given "inconsistent messages". As the Professional Culture Conflicts report explains, this is a situation that is exacerbated at the frontline of public service by "an erosion of confidence". So, for example, nurses, teachers and firefighters – precisely the people we need to be confident, highly skilled and clear about how they can do their work – are experiencing this erosion of confidence.

Capability development, therefore, has to be a priority. There are now fewer public servants available to do the work, so those remaining need serious help. Policy reforms – the shift to commissioning by health professionals, for example – represent major and untested approaches that will require skill and fast learning if they are to work. Furthermore, the operating environment is moving at pace, with new technologies, economic conditions and demographic shifts needing urgent attention and the brainpower to tackle them.

Instead, we see a diminution of the value given to learning and development – symbolised by the closure of bodies such as the National School of Government earlier this year – and battle-worn public servants scrabbling to plug the gaps through DIY training while they also absorb the workloads of those that have left.

Worrying also, we see very little, possibly nothing, in the form of a strategic ambition or a high-level agenda for capability development across the public service. Where is the capabilities strategy? Where are we headed in terms of up-skilling? What is the plan for overcoming the biggest call in decades on the skills of public servants? If anyone can locate it I would be delighted to know.

As John F Kennedy once said: "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." Unfortunately, as things stand, it seems doubtful whether we in the UK have a strategy for either when it comes to public servants.

• Robin Ryde is director of Robin Ryde Consulting, and former chief executive of the National School of Government